White U.S. Senator: Terrorists ‘Look Like Me,’ Not The Refugees

In the United States, you are more likely to be killed by a white man with a gun than you are a Middle Eastern Muslim. Unfortunately, in this country, the term “terrorist” only applies to one of these groups and not the other.

While the Republican politicians, talking heads and voter base continue to paint all Muslims as being anti-American terrorists, one Democratic Senator is dropping an epic truth-bomb on all the bigots.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a stalwart defender of refugees and humanitarianism, blasted Republican demagoguery in an interview with Ohio’s WAKR radio, saying the real terrorists living in America are white men with guns:

Normally, they [terrorists] look more like me than they look like Middle Easterners. They are generally white males, who have shot up people in movie theaters and schools. Those are terrorist attacks but different kinds of terrorist attacks.

I would say they aren’t different kinds of terrorist attacks, but rather they’re just treated differently in the media.

What Republicans won’t mention is that, when surveyed, 74 percent of police and sheriff’s departments nationwide listed “antigovernment” extremists as one of the top three threats of violence in the United States, while 39 percent said “al-Qaeda” inspired extremism. Republicans have been jumping to the defense of police officers lately, so maybe they should take note of this.

One is also more likely to be killed by a right-wing extremist than by a jihadist in the United States. And considering all cases of right-wing terrorism in the United States are committed by a white person, I’ll take my chances with the Syrian refugees before I would take any chances at an anti-government rally.

Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.

In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

While Republicans continue to ignore reality, Democrats are exposing the truth that no one wants to talk about.